


Oddly Foster Parents

by Mama_Qwerty



Category: Fairly OddParents
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 09:25:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4132315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mama_Qwerty/pseuds/Mama_Qwerty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years after Timmy, and his children, Cosmo and Wanda have gotten their new godchild placement. How exciting! But something doesn't seem right . . .</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mail call!

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings to all readers! I posted this over on FFnet under "qwerty-kitties", and it features my OC, Tabby. She's a godchild who comes after Timmy and his children. I created her because I wanted to see how C&W would react to a god-daughter, especially if they were the dominant parental figures in her life. (This was written WAY before Poof's storyline.)
> 
> Many of my stories feature her, so I guess this is a fair warning if you don't like OCs in general or Tabby in particular. I'm actually currently working on a few more FOP fics that will take Tabby and her fairies on an epic adventure through time, show her the circumstances surrounding her birth, and finish out her storyline when she "ages out" of the godparent placement. Angst, adventure, and antics abound!
> 
> Thanks for reading! Check out my profile to find me elsewhere on the 'Net!
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Cosmo! Our new godchild assignment is here!” Wanda called excitedly through the house. “Oh, honey! Come out so we can open it!”

She flew through the living room with the Official Godparent Re-Assignment Packet clutched tightly in her hand, a happy smile lighting her face. If her husband didn’t appear soon, she feared she might tear into the package without him.

“Cosmo? Did you hear me?” she called after a few minutes when he hadn’t joined her. He had to have heard, the house they had rented since leaving their last godchild wasn’t that large. “Where is he?”

Thinking he may have gone into the backyard without telling her, Wanda hurried through the kitchen and out the backdoor.

Once the squeaky door had slammed behind her, Cosmo floated out of the shadows on the second floor. He had heard and seen everything from his vantage point of course, but was not quite ready to join his wife in celebrating the assignment of a new godchild. Not yet.

With an almost unconscious thought, Cosmo transported himself to the attic of their little rented home. Among the cobwebs and occasional dust bunny were boxes—dozens of them—and each one was filled with mementos from their past godchildren.

After a quick glance out the window to check the whereabouts of his wife (Wanda had trapped the neighbor behind them to gush about the new assignment), Cosmo used his wand as a flashlight and carefully pulled a dusty box toward him, lifting the lid to peer inside.

Memories flooded through the little green-haired fairy and he struggled to control the tears that threatened to fall. He lightly ran a finger over a single metal roller skate and closed his eyes as the image of the girl it used to belong to surfaced. Her name was Abigail, with brown hair in long braids that he used to playfully tug. She liked to play jacks and splash in rain puddles.

A tattered deck of cards lay beneath the skate, once belonging to a little boy named Jerry. Cosmo and Wanda had played countless games of ‘Go Fish’ with the boy when he had broken his leg one summer.

Suzie’s hair ribbon had gotten itself tangled with the string of Jason’s paddleball, and Cosmo carefully separated the two, smiling as the images of the children came to the front of his mind. What fun times they had all had together!

Memory after memory crashed like waves in his mind, each as clear and emotionally powerful as they had been originally. He found it strange--and a little scary--that even after who-knows-how-many years, he still felt the joy from playing tag with Suzie, the sorrow at finding Jason’s hamster dead, and the pain when each child had outgrown the need for godparents. He was unfortunately very familiar with that pain.

Each time they were re-assigned, he had sworn that this time, this time he would not get as attached to the child. He would just do his job and be able to say goodbye when the time came without feeling as though a piece of his heart were being ripped from his body and ground to dust beneath his godchild’s feet. This time.

But ‘this time’ never came. He always grew to love the boy or girl as though they were his own flesh and blood. He always did whatever he could to make them laugh and forget the bad day at school, or the horrible way the other kids picked on them, or the awful sounds their daddy made when he was drunk.

And he always thought he could actually feel his heart break when it was time to leave.

Anger flowed through him almost before he could register the emotion. Why did Wanda make him do this? Couldn’t she see how much it hurt him when they had to go? Didn’t she care? Just because being a fairy godparent was HER dream doesn’t mean it was HIS too. He wasn’t sure he even HAD any dreams or aspirations, but sometimes it kind of annoyed him that he wasn’t even given the chance to decide for himself.

Some fairies were just not cut out to be godparents, and Cosmo supposed he was one of them. He was too emotional, too simple. Yes, he freely admitted it, he wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box--he felt confused a good portion of the time, and sometimes got wishes wrong. He’d been called before Jorgen Von Strangle more times than he could remember, usually for what boiled down to the same reason—his stupidity. No matter what he tried to do, it usually came out wrong.

His whole life he had felt like an outcast. He had no friends, his teachers and classmates hated him because of his constant mistakes, and bullies loved to target him. Life seemed to have played the ultimate practical joke on him—give him all the magic and power of being a fairy, but make him incapable of actually controlling it properly. Ha, ha. Good one.

School became a daily nightmare; filled with failure after failure, screw up after screw up. Nothing he did ever came out right, and he had overheard the administrators talking to his mother one day about possibly kicking him out and binding all but the barest minimum of his magic. That scared him badly, and he had spent most of that night in his room, crying and wondering just why he was the way he was.

At that moment, he hated himself. He hated how stupid he was and especially hated the fact that he had no idea how not to be stupid.

He had tried tutors and special classes, all-night study sessions and self-help books. Nothing worked; he just couldn’t focus. His mind seemed to be constantly and completely random, unable to hold a single thought for too long without giving him a migraine.

Defeated, Cosmo resigned himself to the idea of being a failure. He quit going to school and applied for a job at the local diner, despite his mother’s constant tearful objections. Having a job gave him a sense of purpose for the first time in his life, and he discovered he was surprisingly competent at it, mostly because he didn’t need to use magic. It would seem that being a failure as a fairy suited Cosmo well. Who cares if he wasn’t happy? He was useful, and that’s all that mattered. Right?

Life moved on without him, his days filled with waiting tables and filling orders, his nights booked solid with feeling sorry for himself and cursing his stupidity, his cowardice, and his very existence. Not a bad routine, if he didn’t stop to think about how miserable he was.

Then he saw her for the first time.

Wanda. Any anger that had surfaced a minute ago now receded quickly at the mere thought of his wife’s name. Wanda, the woman who always stood by him, no matter what mistakes he made. Wanda, the only fairy who’d ever treated him like a real person instead of just ‘that idiot’. Wanda, the one woman he had fallen head over heels in love with at a mere glance. From the first moment he laid eyes on her, he knew she would be the only girl he could ever love.

She had walked into the diner on a particularly bad afternoon—Cosmo had already broken three dishes and forgotten 2 orders completely—with two of her girlfriends. They sat down at a booth and chatted merrily as he watched, dumbfounded. The girl with the swirly pink hair was quite possibly the most captivating creature he’d ever laid eyes on. Sure he had thought other girls cute, and even asked a few out—only to be turned down flat, usually with a healthy dose of laughter thrown in just for fun—but none of them could even come close to comparing with the vision in booth number 5.

She smiled warmly as the stammering green-haired waiter took their order, and didn’t seem to mind when the same slightly befuddled green-haired waiter accidentally spilled her order all over her and himself a little later. He apologized profusely and tried to help clean her, only to end up making things worse by smearing the mayonnaise from her burger more effectively into her hair. So much for first impressions.

The two girls with her began to laugh hysterically, a sound that rang shrilly in Cosmo’s ears. He knew when people were laughing at him, and it always hurt, but this time was different. This time she was there to see it. She had a front row seat to his stupidity, and the idea that she may soon join in with her own laughter caused his chest to tighten. Horror gripped his throat as he realized that he was about to start crying, right now and in front of her. So he did the only thing he could think of.

He bolted.

Cosmo blurted out one final apology before making for the door, shoving past and through anyone in his way. The tears were starting to fall, but he managed to collapse behind the diner before letting out the first sob.

“I’m so stupid!” he cried, burying his face in his hands. “I’ll never get another chance to talk to her! Why am I so STUPID?!”

“Excuse me?” a voice called from behind him. “Are you all right?”

He froze, eyes wide. With some concentrated effort, Cosmo managed to turn and face the owner of the voice. His breath caught in his throat as an ice ball fell into his stomach.

It was her. Her swirl was mussed, and there were bits of food still clinging to her hair as it hung in clumps, but Cosmo still thought she looked beautiful. Her eyes matched her hair color, and in them he could see concern and compassion—two emotions he had never seen directed towards him before.

“Are you all right?” she asked again, going to her knees before him. Cosmo heard the worry in her voice, and barely restrained an urge to reach forward and kiss this wonderful girl, right here, right now.

“I—I’m sorry,” he said quietly instead. “I didn’t mean to . . . I mean, I was only trying to . . .”

She waved her hand in a dismissive way, smiling. “Oh, don’t worry about that. It was just an accident. Could have happened to anyone!” She held up her hand and effortlessly summoned a stack of napkins.

“What’s your name?” she asked as she gently wiped at the mess on his face.

Cosmo could only stare blankly. He could hardly believe the incredible turn of events the past few minutes had taken. Just 5 minutes ago, he never would have guessed that he would be sitting behind the diner, with a girl, both covered with her order. And she wasn’t mad! He had dumped her order all over her head and she wasn’t yelling at him or calling him clumsy or stupid or anything. She was even asking—

“My name!” he cried as he finished his thought out loud. “You wanna know my name!”

She nodded, an amused smile curling her lips.

“It’s . . .” For a split second he drew a blank before yelling, “Phillip! NO! COSMO!”

“Cosmo? Are you sure?” she joked.

He smiled as a light blush crawled across his cheeks.

“I—It’s Cosmo,” he said quietly. “Sorry. I get confused sometimes.”

Her warm smile returned, making his heart flip.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you Cosmo. I’m Wanda. And I’d like to apologize for the two girls I was with. It was mean of them to laugh at you like that. I’m sorry if they hurt your feelings.”

Cosmo barely heard a word. The gentle pressure of her fingers on his face as she wiped away the food was enough to send his heart into advanced acrobatics. Wanda, he thought deliriously. Her name is Wanda and she said it’s nice to meet me!

**~X~X~X~**

“Cosmo?”

He didn’t want to answer. He didn’t want to lose his hold on such a happy, wonderful memory.

“Cosmo??”

He clamped his eyes shut tightly, trying to shut out the voice. The memory of their first meeting was starting to break apart, floating back into the unorganized subconscious of his mind.

“COSMO??”

This cry could not be ignored. Wanda was back in the house calling for him, and she was starting to sound worried.

With a heavy sigh, Cosmo replaced the lid and slid the box back where he found it. His mind had wandered again, taking him along for the ride. That sometimes happened so easily it was kind of unsettling.

After a concentrated effort, Cosmo pushed the sadness and despair away and poofed himself downstairs, just as Wanda floated hurriedly into the living room.

“There you are!” she exclaimed, the worry on her face quickly exchanged for relief. “I’ve been calling for you! Didn’t you hear me?”

Cosmo offered her an embarrassed smile. “I was upstairs,” he said with a slight shrug, as if that explained everything. His wife fixed him with a thoughtful look, and he shrank slightly from her gaze. “What?”

“Are you okay?” she asked quietly, the worry edging back into her voice. “You look . . . sad.”

He shrugged again.

“I’ll be okay,” he said, giving her a genuine smile. “Just some pre-godchild assignment jitters, I guess.” She studied him for a long moment, and the weight of her gaze began to make him feel guilty. “Really, sweetie, I’m fine. Now let’s see who the next lucky godchild is, huh?”

He smiled widely at her, feeling more love than he thought possible rise in his heart. She was worried about him, all from one look on his face. How could he have gotten so lucky?

“Okay,” she said slowly, still giving him a concerned look. “If you’re all right.”

He nodded happily as he floated next to her.

“With you, babe, I’m always all right!” he said and kissed her cheek noisily.

She laughed and gently shoved him away, a light blush moving across her face. “You big goof,” she said as she ripped into the packet. “What am I gonna do with you?”

Her husband wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Whatever you want, hot stuff!”

She laughed again and pulled the re-assignment paperwork from the envelope, scanning quickly to the middle of the page where the specs of the needy child were printed.

“Let’s see,” she muttered, speed reading through the formalities. “Location . . . name . . . birthdate . . . oh. Wait a minute.” She knitted her brows together, looking confused.

“What?” Cosmo asked, leaning close. “What’s wrong?”

“There must be some mistake,” Wanda said with a headshake.

Cosmo perched his chin on her shoulder as he read the Fairy Godparent re-assignment form from behind her. His lips moved silently as he read, his bright green eyes moving slowly across the page.

“Nope! Look, it says right there ‘Cosmo and Wanda’ and that’s us!” he said as his finger jabbed the page. “No mistake here!”

His wife shook her head again and gently took hold of his still pointing finger.

“No, not there, sweetie,” she said as she guided the tip to the line on the form that read ‘GodChild Age’. “There.”

“Oh,” the green-haired fairy said with a slight blush and examined the new line. He furrowed his brow as he read and re-read the information printed there in the neat, slightly curled handwriting of the Assignment Secretary Fairy. ‘GodChild Name: Tabitha, GodChild Age: 4’. Everything was filled in fully, right down to the kid’s birthdate and shoe size. What had Wanda seen that made her think there was a mistake?

“Oh, yeah,” he stammered after reading it for the tenth time and still not understanding the problem. “That.”

Wanda nodded, too distracted by whatever problem she had seen to notice the way the blush on Cosmo’s cheeks intensified as it worked its way down his neck. A knot had formed in his stomach, and the familiarity of it made him want to scream.

It was the same knot that always appeared when he felt particularly stupid. There was apparently something wrong with the form, or the information on it, and Wanda had seen it immediately. But he just couldn’t figure out where or what it was.

“We have to see Jorgen about this right away!” Wanda cried, and raised her wand to poof them both to the Office of Internal Fairy Affairs before Cosmo could open his mouth.

Seeing Jorgen was not on his ‘things to do today’ list.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A visit with Jorgen. Shouting and muscle-y arguments ensue.

“Can I help you?”

The fairy with magenta hair spoke without looking up when Wanda appeared before the receptionist’s desk with Cosmo in tow.

“Hi, Crystal,” Wanda greeted, releasing her husband’s arm and floating closer to the counter. “We need to see Jorgen.”

The receptionist, Crystal, looked up quickly at the sound of the familiar voice and smiled.

“Oh, hello Wanda. What did Cosmo do this time?” she asked and offered the green haired fairy a raised eyebrow. Cosmo smiled weakly.

Wanda shook her head, a slight smile on her face. “Nothing yet, but we have to speak with the big guy regarding our new godchild assignment. Is he in?”

Before the receptionist could answer, a loud explosion shook the entire building, emanating from behind the closed door of Jorgen’s office. It suddenly burst open, with a charred Binky emerging quickly from the large black smoke cloud within.

“B-but sir, I was—“ the little fairy stammered as the large figure of Jorgen Von Strangle stepped out of the darkened room.

“SILENCE!” Jorgen bellowed in his thick Austrian accent, making both Binky and Cosmo cower. “How many times must I tell you, I only like spicy mustard!”

“Yes sir!” Binky cried before quickly disappearing down the hall.

Jorgen glared after him for a moment before taking notice of Cosmo and Wanda. “Eh?” he uttered in surprise. “What are you two doing here? What has Cosmo done now?!”

The muscular fairy’s voice snapped with impatience, and he pointed his large wand in Cosmo’s direction. The green haired fairy shook noticeably and quickly hid behind his wife.

“No-nothing!” Wanda stammered, and pushed the giant star away from them. Jorgen could sometimes fly off the handle—especially when Cosmo was in some way involved—and looking down the business end of his wand proved particularly unnerving. “We’re here about our assignment!”

Jorgen’s face twisted into a look that could have either been disappointment or confusion, and Wanda had a good idea that it held a little of both.

“Oh,” he said simply, and lowered his wand. “Godchild assignments are final. Now get going.”

With that he turned and marched back into his office, waving his mighty wand once to dissipate all the remaining smoke. Wanda and Cosmo exchanged a glance, and the pink haired fairy quickly flew in after him.

“Wait a minute!” she called, slightly annoyed at the rude treatment. “Jorgen, I think there’s been some sort of mistake!”

The large fairy stopped in mid-stride and turned.

“A mistake?” he repeated, pegging her with a dark look. “Are you, a puny fairy, saying that I, in my muscular perfection, have made a mistake??”

Wanda paled and began to shake. “W-well, uh . . .”

“And you!” Jorgen shouted, pointing to Cosmo—who had been hovering in the doorway, doing a fair impression of a potted plant. “Do you also think I made a mistake?”

Cosmo’s automatic reaction was to deny any such thing. Jorgen, make a mistake? Impossible! Jorgen doesn’t make mistakes, he corrects them—usually with a big heaping helping of pain just for good measure. And Cosmo should know, he’d been on the receiving end on more than one occasion.

He opened his mouth to say just that when Wanda turned and gave him a look. Not the annoyed look like when he blurted out something stupid, or the hurt look when he blurted out something stupid and mean, but a look she didn’t often give him.

It was a pleading look, a look that said ‘Help me!’ and made him completely forget anything that had gone through his mind just a minute ago. His sense of self-preservation was overruled by his love for his wife.

“Y-yeah,” Cosmo whimpered, floating quickly to his wife and clutching her shoulders. “If Wanda thinks there’s a mistake, then there must be.”

Jorgen frowned. “There IS no mistake,” he said gruffly before leaning his wand against the wall and returning to his desk. “All godchild assignments are approved by me personally, and I do not make mistakes.”

“Yes, I understand that, Jorgen,” Wanda said, her voice slightly higher than usual. His wand may have been out of reach, but he was still very strong. The guy didn’t exactly NEED magic to put a hurting on anyone if he felt so inclined. “But we think that there may have been a little . . . something you missed on the paperwork.” That sounded better than ‘you goofed up’, didn’t it?

Jorgen shook his head. “I carefully examine the details of each prospective godchild and assign them accordingly. I have never made a mistake based on the information available at the time of the assignment,” he said calmly, but sternly.

Wanda nodded and poofed up the re-assignment paperwork. “I know,” she said, showing him the first page. “But if you’ll just take a look at this line . . .”

“SHE’S TOO YOUNG!” Cosmo suddenly shouted, feeling immensely proud of himself for finally figuring it out. “She’s only 4 and that’s too young for a godparent . . . or two.” Wanda and Jorgen stared at him, making him blush. “I-it just kind of hit me.”

“She is a needy, miserable child, and needy, miserable children are assigned fairy godparents,” Jorgen said, practically quoting page one of ‘So You Wanna Be A Fairy Godparent?’

Wanda shook her head. “But—“

“NO ARGUMENTS!” the head fairy suddenly boomed, getting to his feet. Wanda wisely backed away, with Cosmo clutching almost painfully to her arm. “You have your assignment, now GO!”

He reached for his wand, but Cosmo quickly raised his and poofed himself and Wanda back to their little house in Fairy World. The little green haired fairy may not have been very smart, but he knew when it was time to go.

_**~X~X~X~** _

“Well, looks like we have a new godchild,” Wanda said, going over the paper in her hand once more. “A four-year-old girl. I didn’t think that was allowed.”

“Wanda?”

“Yeah, hon?”

“Why is 4 too young?” Cosmo asked hesitantly. He had figured out WHERE the mistake was, after letting it roll around in his brain for a while, but now he couldn’t figure out just WHY it was a mistake in the first place. “If she needs fairy godparents, that must mean she’s really sad and unhappy. Isn’t it good that she’s getting us?”

“Ordinarily, yes,” his wife replied as she sat down on the couch. Cosmo followed and sat beside her. “When it’s a slightly older child like 7 or 9, and they can fully understand the whole concept. But a four year old . . .” She shook her head. “It’s just so young.”

Wanda glanced at her husband and noted the familiar look of confusion on his face. He wanted to understand, but he just . . . couldn’t. She would have to think of a different way of explaining.

“Remember in Godparent History, when we were supposed to learn from the mistakes of past godparents?”

Cosmo nodded slowly.

“Remember the story about the godparents who were assigned a 4 year old a long, long time ago?”

He nodded again.

“That assignment caused a lot of problems for Fairy World, and it changed the way we did things. It was decided that 4 was simply too young for godparents.”

“Well, Jorgen doesn’t think she’s too young,” Cosmo commented, looking down at the re-assignment form. “Maybe that one all those years ago was just a fluke.”

Wanda shrugged. “Maybe. I guess it doesn’t really matter either way, because it sounds like Jorgen won’t change his mind. I guess we’d better get ready to go.”

Cosmo nodded. “Okay. You pack the bedroom, the living room, the kitchen and the bathroom, and I’ll pack the attic!” he cried before poofing away in a cloud of greenish smoke.

Wanda shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Thanks, Cosmo,” she muttered. “’Preciate the help.”

_**~X~X~X~** _

Tabby sat in her playroom, quietly playing with her favorite doll. She gently combed her fingers through the doll’s yarn hair, her eyes soft and faraway.

Her most recent nanny, Maureen—or was it Mary? Megan? Did it even matter anymore?—was sitting to her left, finishing out the little girl's second pigtail. Tabby really didn’t like pigtails, but didn’t see a need to make a fuss. Her nannies never stayed for very long anyway—no one in her life ever did—so what was the point in telling them what she liked?

“There you go, sweetie,” the nanny said as she tightened the girl’s pigtails. “All done.” The woman leaned forward to kiss Tabby on the forehead and the girl pulled away with a grimace. This nanny always smelled funny.

“Eh, suit yourself you little brat,” she said sourly as she walked toward the door. “You sit up here in your own little world and don’t bother me while my stories are on, okay?” The little pigtailed girl didn’t reply. “Yeah, that’s a good girl.”

Nanny Maureen/Mary/Megan walked toward the hallway as she pulled a pack of cigarettes from her pocket. She gave the pack an experienced shake while closing the door with her foot, leaving Tabby alone with her thoughts and her many dolls.

“She smells bad,” the little girl whispered to the doll in her hands. “And she makes my hair hurt.”

Tabby reached up and loosened her pigtails, relieving the pulling on her scalp. Then she picked up the ragdoll she had been playing with and knee-walked to the rest of her family of dolls.

“Time for nappy, Miss Suzie,” she said, carefully laying the doll in line with the others. “Night, night.”

She leaned forward and gently kissed the doll’s yarn hair before walking to the door connecting this room to her bedroom. A giant Victorian-style dollhouse—one nearly as tall as the little girl herself—sat in the corner of her bedroom near the door connecting the two rooms, and she didn’t give it a second glance as she climbed onto her bed and curled under the covers for her own nap.

Had she stopped to look into one of the upper windows of the dollhouse, she may have seen two pairs of eyes staring back at her. One set pink, and the other green.

“The poor dear!” Wanda whispered as she watched the little girl settle into bed. “She’s so lonely!”

“But her babysitter doesn’t seem too bad,” Cosmo said quietly, looking confused. “Aren’t we usually assigned because babysitters are mean?”

“Not all the time, Cosmo,” his wife said, her eyes glued to the girl in bed. “Sometimes a neglectful babysitter is worse than a mean one.”

Cosmo shrugged. “But she put her hair in pigtails and tried to kiss her. Doesn’t that mean she cares, even a little?”

“Maybe,” Wanda said quietly, her brows knitting together. “This whole assignment is so odd!”

“Tabby sweetie!” a voice suddenly called from the hallway, making the little girl practically leap out of bed.

“Mommy!” Tabby cried as a 30-ish woman with a perfect tan, perfectly styled blonde hair and perfectly applied make up entered the room. She smiled and her perfectly bleached white teeth nearly blinded Cosmo.

“Hello, sweetie!” the woman said sweetly as she bent down to pat her daughter on the head. “How are you, darling?”

“Fine,” the girl answered as her father—also perfectly tan and as equally bleached as his wife—walked in. “Can we go to the park today? I wanna play on the swings!” Her mother smiled sweetly and patted her head again.

“Oh, not today, baby. Daddy and I have a very important meeting to get to. We might not be back until really late tonight, so you’ll stay with nanny Milly.”

“No, Allie, Milly was last week,” her husband corrected her, ruffling his daughter’s hair. “Maggie is downstairs right now.”

His wife looked confused.

“I thought Maggie was a month ago,” she said, getting to her feet. “Remember Tom? Right after that nice girl from Montana.”

The man shook his head. “No, you’re thinking of Nelly, and she was from Iowa. I don’t think we’ve ever had anyone from Montana.”

Allie thought about this. “Let’s see,” she said, counting off on her fingers. “Missy was from Nevada, Mrs. Stark was from Vermont, those twins were from Wyoming—“

“Oh, yeah,” Tom said, a wide smile crossing his face. “Lucy and Cindy. I forgot about them.” The smile dropped quickly when his wife shot him ‘The Look’. “I mean, they were nice. Tabby really seemed to like them.”

‘Like’ was not exactly the way Tabby would have phrased it if asked, because she in fact never saw those two girls much. They had spent most of their employment on the phone or out back in the swimming pool. The only reason they had quit was because Tabby’s parents had forgotten to pay them one time too many, and the girls had walked out in the middle of the day—after helping themselves to some of the good silverware and nicer picture frames, that is.

Tom and Allie had discovered their daughter all by herself in the kitchen, eating slices of cheese to stave off her hunger.

“When can we go to the park?” the little girl asked, breaking her parents out of their game of ‘Name the Nanny’. “I wanna play with you.”

Her parents exchanged a glance before kneeling before her.

“We’re very busy, sweetie,” her mother said, placing a gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Daddy and I have lots of meetings and places to go.”

“Grownups have lots of responsibilities, kiddo,” her father added, ruffling her hair again. “We can’t just run off to the park willy-nilly! We promised to be somewhere, and keeping your word is important.”

“Am I important?” Tabby asked quietly.

Her parents smiled.

“Of course you are,” Allie said with an oh-so-perfect smile. “You’re very important. That’s why we hire all those nice nannies to take such good care of you while we’re away.”

“Oh,” Tabby said softly. “That’s why, huh?”

Her mother nodded. “Uh huh, that’s why. So you be good for Nanny . . . uh, for the nanny, okay, sweetie?”

Tabby nodded. “Okay.”

“That’s a good girl!” Tom said with a smile. “Who’s Daddy’s little girl?”

Tabby smiled weakly. “I am.”

“That’s right!” He and his wife stood and walked toward the door as Tabby watched silently. “Be good!”

“I will,” Tabby replied as her door closed behind them. “I just wish I had someone to play with.”

Inside the dollhouse, Wanda turned to Cosmo. Her eyes were shiny and her cheeks wet. She had witnessed scenes very similar to this play out thousands, perhaps millions of times in her life as a godparent, but they never ceased to touch her heart.

These poor children tried so hard to reach out to their parents, only to be carelessly and thoughtlessly turned away. Granted, Tom and Allie didn’t seem as neglectful or indifferent as some, but they certainly didn’t seem like they cared very much about their daughter, either. Certainly not enough to postpone or even cancel whatever plans they had made in order to spend some much needed time with the girl.

Having never been able to bear children of her own, this astounded the pink haired fairy. Why on earth would people even have children in the first place if they weren’t going to spend any time with them?

“Wanda?” Cosmo whispered, looking worried. “Are you okay?”

Wanda nodded, wiping her cheeks dry. Tabby’s parents might not be here, but her new godparents were. And it was time to make themselves known.

“I’m okay, sweetie,” she said sweetly, grabbing her wand. “Our new goddaughter just made her first wish. Why don’t we go grant it, hmm?”

Cosmo smiled and nodded, raising his own wand. “Right! I love this part!” he cried before they poofed out of the dollhouse with the perfect synchronization that comes from living and working together for nearly 10,000 years.

_**~X~X~X~** _

Tabby was still standing in the middle of the room, staring at her bedroom door when she heard a strange kind of stereo ‘poof’ sound behind her. She turned and saw two brightly colored little people with wings and crowns floating in mid-air. They smiled at her, and held sticks with stars at the top.

“Hi, Tabby!” they cried in unison, making the girl jerk involuntarily.

“I’m Cosmo!” the green one cried, leaning forward.

“And I’m Wanda!” the pink one added, also leaning forward.

“And we’re . . .” they said in unison as they swirled together, a stage—complete with spotlights and sparkly dust—appearing beneath them. “Your Fairy Godparents!” Large neon letters appeared above their heads, sparking and blinking furiously.

Tabby stared wide-eyed.

Wanda watched the little girl, worried that their grandiose entrance might have scared her.

Cosmo twitched uncomfortably. Holding the ‘ta da’ position for so long was starting to give him a cramp.

“I think we need a new opening act,” Wanda muttered to her husband as Tabby continued to stare.

“Can we move?” he muttered back, his body quivering. “I’m starting to lose the feeling in my arm!”

Wanda released him and quickly poofed the stage away. As a result, Cosmo fell to the floor with a soft ‘whump’, just as Wanda flew closer to Tabby.

“Hello, sweetie,” the pink haired fairy said with a sweet smile. “How are you—“

Before Wanda could say another word, Tabby threw her head back and screamed.

“I hate this part!” Cosmo cried as the two fairies clamped their hands over their ears.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the world of fairies, kid!

“Tabby! What’s going on up there?? Are you all right??”

Wanda barely heard the voice call from the stairway as the nanny climbed quickly. Tabby was still screaming, her head thrown back with her eyes closed tightly. It was a miracle the little pink haired fairy had heard anything at all.

“The nanny’s coming!” Wanda hissed to Cosmo, who was floating with his eyes tightly closed, and his hands clamped down tightly over his ears. He made no sign that he had heard his wife, so she flew to him quickly and grabbed his arm. They poofed back into the dollhouse just as the bedroom door burst open.

“Tabby? Tabby!” the nanny cried, going to her knees before the screaming child and giving her a stern shake. “TABBY!” The little brunette immediately quieted and gave her nanny a shocked look. “What’s the matter? Why are you screaming?”

“Strangers!” Tabby cried, staring at her nanny with large eyes and pointing where Cosmo and Wanda had been a mere moment ago. “Strangers in my room!”

The nanny gave the girl a confused look. “Strangers?” she asked and followed where Tabby was pointing. “Honey, there’s no one here. Just you and me.”

The little girl shook her head violently. “Nuh uh! They were here! Little people with wings and crowns and funny colored hair!” she cried, and the two fairies within the dollhouse gasped. Could they be taken away even if the nanny didn’t believe Tabby?

“Little people with wings, huh?” the nanny said, straightening up. “So, what are we talking about here? Pixies? Sprites? Fairies? Are you playing some sort of game?”

Tabby swung her head back and forth quickly. “No, no game!” she cried, tugging on her nanny’s shirt. “They were here! Right there!”

She pointed to the spot again, only to have the nanny push her arm down.

“There’s no one here, Tabby,” the young lady said with a sigh. “There’s no possible way that anyone could get up here without me knowing.”

“But—“

“No buts,” the nanny said firmly as she walked toward the door. “There are no such things as little people with wings. No such thing as pixies, or fairies or whatever it was you thought you saw. They’re not real.”

Tabby, realizing the futility of arguing, said nothing. The nanny was never going to believe her anyway, so why bother. But she was sure she had seen two little people--one girl, one boy—and she was also sure they had had wings. But they were nowhere to be seen now, and it was if they had never been there to begin with. Maybe she did imagine them. But they had seemed so real. And the girl even talked to her. Maybe—

“Tabby?” the nanny called as she reached the door, breaking the girl from her thoughts. “Remember, they’re not real. They’re just pretend, okay?”

Tabby nodded. “Not real. Just pretend.”

“There ya go,” the young woman said with a smile. “If you see them again, just keep telling yourself that they’re not real, and they’ll go away, okay?” Tabby nodded. “Good girl. You be good while I fix some lunch, okay?”

The little girl nodded once more, and the nanny smiled before walking out and closing the door behind her.

“Not real,” Tabby whispered to herself once the nanny was gone. “Just pretend.”

“How does SHE know fairies aren’t real?” an annoyed voice called from behind her. Tabby whirled around and saw the two little people back again, and the boy looked mad. “Has she ever MET one?? How rude!”

“Cosmo, shush!” the pink haired girl said before turning to float toward Tabby. “Hello, sweetie. Can we try this again?”

The little girl gasped and suddenly found a hand clamped over her mouth.

“Please don’t scream again Tabby, or your nanny will come back up. We’re not here to hurt you, sweetie, we’re here to be your friends.”

Tabby’s eyes flicked back and forth between the two new people in her room. She could feel the pressure of the pink haired girl’s hand on her face, and she wondered—could imaginary people touch her? Since she had never had an imaginary friend before this, she wasn’t sure, but she didn’t think so. Maybe these two people weren’t imaginary, after all.

Then what could they be? They looked like the pictures in her storybooks, but her nanny had said there were no such things as fairies, so wouldn’t that mean that they’re still just pretend? Ugh, this was so confusing.

The pink haired girl smiled.

“If I take my hand away, will you promise not to scream?” she asked softly.

The green haired boy suddenly flew next to them. “You better make her promise not to shriek, shout, yell or yodel, either,” he told the other girl. “She’s got quite a set of lungs on her.”

The girl shot an annoyed look at the boy before turning back to Tabby.

“We won’t hurt you,” she said again, smiling kindly. “So please don’t make any loud noises, okay?” Tabby nodded against the girl’s hand. “Okay. One, two, three!”

The hand was removed and the pink and green haired people scrunched their faces up like little kids afraid of bad tasting medicine. When the air hadn’t been pierced by the high-pitched wail of a 4 year old, the two relaxed and smiled at her.

“There,” the girl said. “See? We’re friends!”

“You’re not real,” Tabby said softly. “Nanny says you’re just pretend.”

The green haired boy rolled his eyes and crossed his arms angrily as he turned slightly, muttering something under his breath Tabby couldn’t make out. The girl with him ignored him, and floated closer to the little brunette.

“Well, nannies don’t know everything, sweetie,” she said with a kind smile. “We are real, and we’re here to be your friends.”

Tabby wrinkled her brow. “Friends?” she asked, doubtful. The only people who said they wanted to be her ‘friend’ were the many nannies her parents had hired, and they never stayed too long.

The pink haired girl nodded, the big curl in her hair bouncing happily.

“Uh huh,” she said, her smile growing wider by the second. “I’m Wanda, and this is Cosmo.” The green haired boy had recovered from his pout and smiled and waved at the mention of his name. “We’re your fairy godparents. We’re here to grant you wishes and make sure you have fun and are happy.”

“You’re not real,” Tabby repeated, shaking her head slightly. “You’re just pretend.”

Wanda shook her own head, a gentle smile on her lips. “No, sweetie, we’re really—“

“Just pretend,” Tabby said again as she turned and walked toward the bedroom door. “No such things as fairies or friends. Nanny says.” The little girl struggled with the doorknob as Wanda flew close, nervously fidgeting with her wand.

“Tabby, your nanny is wrong,” she said softly as her old friend ‘worry’ began to edge into her mind. “Fairies and pixies DO exist, and so do friends. We’re fairies and we’re here to be your friends!”

“NO!” the little girl yelled, startling both fairies. “YOU’RE LYING! YOU’RE NOT REAL!!”

Her struggles with the doorknob finally paid off as the latch released, and she ran through the crack as the door swung open. Wanda hurried to the doorway in time to see her new goddaughter run clumsily down the hall and start down the stairway. The pink haired fairy risked a trip into the hallway to peer around the corner and make sure Tabby made it safely to the bottom of the stairs before returning to the bedroom, quietly closing the door behind her.

“What was THAT all about??” Cosmo asked once she had returned. They had been godparenting for a lot of years, and he couldn’t remember a child ever reacting like Tabby had. “What’s the matter with her?”

Wanda didn’t answer. She was staring blankly at the floor as she replayed the scene over and over in her mind.

Reactions of newly assigned godchildren tended to fall into three distinct categories; confused, disbelief, and happy. Anger was not necessarily the first thing you reacted with when you discover that you suddenly have magical fairies at your disposal, so Tabby’s outburst was surprising, to say the least. She had gotten so angry at the mere idea of having friends, and seemed quite close-minded for one so young.

Wanda was torn between thinking that they had either been assigned too late, or just in time. Cosmo probably would have voted for ‘too late’ if asked, and Wanda might have agreed with him had she not noticed one, small thing.

“She was crying,” the pink haired fairy said quietly.

Her husband shook his head. “No, she was YELLING,” he said as he crossed his arms. “Trust me on this, I know yelling when I hear it.”

Wanda looked at him then, and the annoyed look he expected wasn’t there. What he saw instead was a mixture of sadness and confusion.

“Wanda?” he asked softly, reaching for her.

“She was scared, Cosmo,” his wife said, her voice wavering. “That little girl was so scared she was crying!”

Confusion passed over the green haired fairy’s face as he looked back at his wife.

“Why? We’re not scary!” Cosmo cried, throwing his arms into the air. “Why would she be scared of us?”

“It’s not us personally, sweetie, it’s what we represent.”

“Huh?”

“Friends, Cosmo,” Wanda explained softly as she gently landed on her goddaughter’s bed. “We told her that we’re here to be her friends. She’s never had any before, so it scared her.”

“Oh. So now what do we do?”

Wanda shrugged. “There’s really not a whole lot we CAN do right now,” she said with a sigh. “If we push too fast, we’ll scare her even more. We just have to take it slow and show her that we’re not going anywhere. We have to let her see that we really are here to be her friends.”

Cosmo looked doubtful. “I don’t know, Wanda, she didn’t really seem like she really wanted us here,” he said quietly. “Maybe this assignment was a mistake after all.”

His wife shook her head, a look of determination crossing her face.

“She’s our new godchild, Cosmo,” she said, that familiar decisive tone to her voice. “We can’t leave just because our initial meeting didn’t go as expected. It’s like Jorgen said, she’s a miserable, lonely child who needs us, so we’re going to stay here and at least try to help her.”

“But Wanda . . .” Cosmo started, but could go no further because he wasn’t exactly sure what to say.

Sure, this kid seemed pretty lonely, and miserable, and withdrawn, and perfectly in need of godparents. Lonely child plus miserable childhood plus busy parents equals fairy godparents. It was practically the first thing they taught you at the Fairy Academy, right after ‘Point Wand Away From Face’. But her angry reaction had caught Cosmo off guard and didn’t exactly endear her to him.

“I think she really needs us,” Wanda said softly, breaking her husband from his thoughts. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”

“I guess,” Cosmo said quietly. There was no use in arguing and he knew it. Wanda was right, and he’d realize it once his brain had a chance to process all that she had said. That’s the way it usually worked, anyway.

“She’ll come around soon, sweetie, you’ll see,” Wanda said as she hugged Cosmo tight.

He shrugged within her embrace. “I hope so,” he said as he curled his arms around her and held her to him.

It was a half lie, because at this stage in the assignment, he hadn’t formed any real feelings toward the girl one way or the other. And if that was the way she was going to act towards them, staying detached would be easy with this godchild.

“Besides,” Wanda was saying as she rubbed his back. “If you want to leave, we’d have to go see Jorgen again. And I doubt you’d want that.”

Her husband snickered. “You got me there,” he said with a slight laugh. “I’d rather stay here than face him!”

“Then it’s settled!” the pink haired fairy said with a smile as she pulled back. “We’re staying! Let’s go unpack!”

Without giving her husband a chance to respond, Wanda disappeared into the dollhouse in a puff of light pink smoke. Cosmo looked toward their new home and sighed.

Maybe Wanda was right. Maybe this kid just needed a few days to warm up to the idea of godparents. Maybe she just reacted the way she did because of how young she is. Maybe things will all settle down really soon.

Cosmo raised his wand to follow his wife into their new dollhouse home. A thought flittered through his mind quickly, and he scarcely had a chance to even register it.

Maybe he’d be able to stay detached this time. Maybe he could keep himself from caring.  


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A (god)mother worries. Back to Jorgen.

“Is there anything you need, sweetie?” Wanda asked as Tabby played quietly with one of her dolls. “Anything you’d like to play?”

The toddler said nothing. Her fingers never stopped moving as they gently combed through the doll’s hair, and she gave no indication that she had heard the little pink haired fairy at all. Wanda frowned and moved directly in front of her goddaughter.

“I know you can hear me, Tabby,” she said quietly. “Why won’t you talk to me?”

Tabby responded by turning her back on her godmother, her eyes never leaving the doll in her hands.

Wanda stared at the little girl for a few seconds before finally turning away with a sad sigh. It had been three days since she and Cosmo had first appeared to Tabby, and the girl simply refused to talk to or even acknowledge the fairies’ existence. The most reaction Wanda could hope for is a blank stare, and even those were few and far between.

The little pink haired fairy was exhausted, having spent hours she should have been sleeping worrying instead. Tabby had been assigned godparents because she was being neglected, and not receiving the amount of one-on-one attention a growing toddler needed to become a well-adjusted individual. Theoretically, she should have been thrilled to finally have someone who would pay attention to her. But she wasn’t. If anything, she was even more withdrawn since Cosmo and Wanda appeared.

Was HAVING fairy godparents more detrimental to her emotional well being than NOT having them?

Wanda frowned. Maybe the assignment really was a mistake. Maybe Tabby was simply too young for fairy godparents.

“I don’t understand why she’s acting like this,” Wanda said quietly as she floated next to her husband. “It’s been too long. She can’t still be scared, can she?”

Cosmo said nothing. He COULD have said something, but recognized that the first three things that popped into his mind were not very nice, so he wisely kept his mouth shut. He may not have been very smart, but he knew his wife very well, and he knew that a tired, worried Wanda was not a Wanda he wanted to anger.

“I’m going to lie down for a while,” his wife said with a yawn as she floated toward the dollhouse. “Keep and eye on her, okay Cosmo?” The green haired fairy nodded. “Thanks, sweetie.” In a small puff of light pink smoke, Wanda was gone.

Cosmo turned to look at his goddaughter and frowned. It was her fault. She was the cause of his wife’s troubles. She obviously didn’t want the fairies around, and Cosmo would have had no trouble leaving the child to all the misery she had created for herself. Many children would have given away their little brothers to have fairies to grant them wishes, and here Tabby was, completely ignoring them and wasting the opportunity! It seemed really unfair.

Besides, not granting wishes or performing any magic at all for so long was making Cosmo restless. According to Da Rules, a godparents’ magic is bound until the child they are assigned to makes their first wish. Until that time, only the barest amount of magic is available to them. If Tabby didn’t want them around, the least she could do was to wish them away.

Every day was the same thing. Tabby would sit quietly for hours, combing her doll’s hair or playing with her blocks, and Cosmo would sit in the corner and watch her, pouting. No matter what Wanda did, no matter how much she tried to interact with Tabby, the most she got from the toddler was a blank stare. Wanda said it was probably because no one spent any real time with her and that she didn’t know how to react now that someone was paying attention to her, but Cosmo honestly didn’t really care.

If she didn’t talk, she couldn’t wish, and if she couldn’t wish, they couldn’t grant them. He felt useless, and if there was one thing that Cosmo hated more than just about anything else, it was feeling useless.

So Cosmo sulked. Staying detached was one thing, but being ignored was quite another.

_**~X~X~X~** _

“I’m going to see Jorgen tomorrow,” Wanda said quietly. They were in bed, lying awake after another long, quiet day. “There . . . there must have been a mistake. I think she may be too young.”

Cosmo rolled onto his left side and looked at his wife. The glow from the nightlight in Tabby’s room shone through the dollhouse window, illuminating Wanda’s face and hair, giving her a soft, almost angelic look. Shiny tracks ran down her cheeks, revealing the trails of her tears.

“I’m sorry, Wanda,” he said softly as he reached over to caress her face. “You tried really hard. Maybe she just doesn’t want godparents.”

Wanda blinked hard, setting another set of tears free.

“She needs friends, Cosmo,” she whispered in a thick voice. “She needs attention. She needs to be loved. She NEEDS us!” Wanda’s body trembled as she sobbed silently into her hands.

“But Wanda,” Cosmo said softly as he sat up and gently stroked his wife’s big pink swirl. “She doesn’t WANT us. It’s been a whole week and she hasn’t said one word to us since the first day we got here.”

“But . . . s-she’s just scared and not used to—“ Wanda began before another sob shook her.

Cosmo nodded slightly. “I know, she’s not used to attention and doesn’t know how to act,” he said as he curled his arms around his weeping wife. “But you can’t force her to change if she doesn’t want to.”

The wife in his arms shook her head. “But, maybe if we give her a little more time . . .”

“We’re risking magical buildup as it is,” he reminded her gently. “Even our toughest kids never held out this long.”

Wanda considered this as her sobs dwindled to sniffles. After a few minutes, she let out a long, shuddery sigh.

“You’re right,” she said quietly. “I haven’t been able to make any progress with her. She won’t talk to me, and barely even looks at me. She either doesn’t want us here, or is really, really stubborn.”

They sat in silence for a time, each absorbed in their own thoughts. Wanda felt the same disappointment she always felt when it appeared an assignment wouldn’t work out—just as some fairies weren’t cut out to be godparents, some children weren’t cut out to be godkids—but mingled in with that disappointment was a tiny touch of annoyance at Cosmo. He was so calm about the whole subject, and just didn’t seem to care. Here was a child’s emotional well being at stake, perched precariously on a razor’s edge of normalcy, and Cosmo didn’t care.

The more Wanda thought about it, the more it irritated her. How on earth could he call himself a godparent if he so obviously didn’t care about the welfare of his godchild?

She almost asked him about it—the words had made it as far as her throat—when Cosmo shifted his position and rested his head on her chest. His left arm was pinned beneath him, and he managed to snake his hand into hers to intertwine their fingers, while his right arm lay gently across her belly. The fingers of his right hand softly brushed the fine hairs on her slim hip, and he was very careful not to tickle such a sensitive spot.

His gentle and loving actions dissolved any anger Wanda had felt toward him a moment before, and she reached up with her left hand to run her fingers through his soft, slightly mussed, green hair.

“My Wanda,” he whispered so softly that she wondered if he was aware he had spoken aloud. “I love my Wanda. Just Wanda.”

The pink haired fairy smiled as her fingers continued to slide through her husband’s hair. Cosmo was so simple, so pure. He was very sensitive and vulnerable when it came to his emotions, and it usually took him a while to get close to new godchildren in the best of circumstances, so his reactions with Tabby actually weren’t all that hard to understand after all. The child’s strange behavior didn’t exactly make Cosmo WANT to get close to her, so he wasn’t as broken up at the idea of leaving her as Wanda was. Right now, Tabby was just the ‘new godchild’, and if she were to be replaced with a different ‘new godchild’, Cosmo would adjust fine. There were no emotions invested in this kid yet.

In other words, he didn’t really care because he didn’t have much reason to.

The gentle stroking motions of Cosmo’s fingers began to slow, and Wanda could sense that he was falling asleep. She briefly considered rearranging him so that their pinned arms wouldn’t fall asleep too—she hated that feeling of dead weight right before the painful pins and needles started—but dismissed it. She would suffer through the pain if it meant her husband could stay where he was.

After the rough patch their marriage had gone through a few godchildren ago—during the era of Timmy Turner, how she wondered how he and his children were doing—she now relished and reveled in all the little ways he showed how much he cared. It was as though she had rediscovered the man she first married, and fallen in love with him all over again.

Her own fingers began to slow, and a large yawn escaped her. Deciding to speak with Jorgen seemed to have put her mind at ease, if only for the time being, and sleep was coming for her. With a smile on her lips, and her fingers buried in her husband’s hair, Wanda went happily enough.

_**~X~X~X~** _

“You again?” the muscular Head Fairy asked as he shuffled through a pile of papers on his desk. “Weren’t you just here yesterday?”

“Actually, it was more than a week ago, Jorgen,” Wanda said as she floated before his large desk. A few papers flittered over the front edge and Wanda grabbed them before they slipped beneath it. “But I’m here for the same reason.”

“What has Cosmo done this time?” he asked as more papers fell to the floor. As he bent to pick up the fallen ones, a new stack toppled and lazily flittered to the floor. With an exasperated grunt, Jorgen grabbed his large wand and swung it angrily over the desk. All papers on and around the desk immediately organized themselves into neat stacks, just ready and waiting for the appropriate stamp and seal of the Head Fairy.

“There,” he said, mostly to himself. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that sooner.” He looked up and his face contorted to a look of surprise when he saw the little pink haired fairy floated before him. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you,” she said with a sigh. “About our assignment.”

It was Jorgen’s turn to sigh. “I told you before,” he said as he sat back down behind the desk. “All godchild assignments are final.”

Wanda nodded. “I know that, but I think we . . . well, I think we may need a new one.”

The large man’s eyebrows knitted together. “What are you talking about?”

“Tabby, our new godchild assignment, well, I think she’s too young,” Wanda said slowly. “She’s . . . well, to be perfectly honest, she ignores us.”

Jorgen shrugged. “She’ll come around.”

Wanda shook her head. “Jorgen, I’ve been trying to work with her all week long,” she said with a sigh. “She refuses to talk to me, and won’t even look at me half the time. She really doesn’t seem to even want us there.”

Jorgen seemed to consider this. “Is she being abusive?” he asked after a long minute.

Wanda blinked. The question had caught her off guard.

“Well no . . .” she said slowly after a moment’s thought.

“Has she broken any big rules?”

“No, but—“

“Has she told anyone about you two?”

“I don’t think so—“

“Is she happy?”

“Of course not!”

“Then you can’t be reassigned,” Jorgen said with a small shrug. “The only way godparents can be reassigned or taken away from a godchild is if the godchild is being intentionally abusive and/or hurtful to the godparents, if they tell anyone their secret, if they break any of the big rules, or if they’re happy. Since none of those things apply to your godchild, you stay.”

“But she’s not responding!” Wanda cried, slapping her hands on the desk. “All she does is sit there and totally and completely ignore us! What kind of assignment is that?”

“SHE is a NEEDY and MISERABLE child!” Jorgen bellowed, and somewhere deep in the Office of Internal Fairy Affairs building, Binky fainted. Wanda wasn’t nearly as intimidated. “YOU are a FAIRY GODPARENT! Your JOB is to make her LESS needy and miserable! If SHE’S not responding, then YOU’RE not doing YOUR job properly!”

“Don’t YOU tell ME how to do MY job!” Wanda growled back, her hair becoming aflame. “How would YOU know what it’s like to be a fairy godparent? I don’t seem to recall YOU ever having any godchildren!”

Jorgen’s face turned bright red and a large vein throbbed in his forehead.

“HOW DARE YOU QUESTION ME!!” he boomed, and the roof of the building threatened to collapse on top of them. “I AM THE VERY MIGHTY AND MUSCULAR HEAD FAIRY!!”

“THEN BE A MAN AND ADMIT YOU MADE A MISTAKE WITH THIS ASSIGNMENT!” Wanda shouted, pointing her wand at her superior. “ADMIT IT!”

“THERE IS NO MISTAKE!!”

As the tempers and strong wills of two of the most stubborn beings in Fairy World clashed, the entire office building trembled on its very foundation. Colorful rivers poured out of every door and window as fairy workers attempted to escape the large explosion that would inevitably come.

When you work for Jorgen Von Strangle, you learn very quickly that very loud yelling is usually followed by a very loud explosion.

“Stand down puny fairy,” Jorgen growled as he pointed his large heavy wand at Wanda. “This assignment is no mistake.”

“Just admit it,” Wanda hissed, defiantly holding her ground, her own wand held high and pointed directly at the large man’s head. “Or at least admit that she’s not ready for godparents yet.”

“It does not matter if she’s READY for you, she NEEDS you!”

Wanda jerked as if poked. Her brows knitted together in confusion as the arm that held her wand slowly lowered.

“What?”

“She needs you,” Jorgen repeated as he also lowered his wand. “So far in her life there have been no constants. Her parents are always on the go and her nannies come and go so quickly no one can remember their names. We’re not talking about some kid with a mean babysitter who occasionally needs cheering up, we’re talking about a child whose very existence seems to be easily overlooked and disregarded.”

Wanda said nothing, partially because she had never heard Jorgen speak so openly about a godchild assignment before, and partially because she knew he was right. Tabitha’s parents seemed so distracted and preoccupied with their social standing that they had barely made an appearance to their own daughter all week long. And when they had shown up, it was only to give her a pat on the head and tell her to ‘be good for the nanny’.

The nannies, for that matter, were usually inexperienced ladies who were too busy watching TV or gossiping with the neighbor’s gardener to really pay any real attention to Tabby, and there had actually been two different ones in just this past week alone.

At this rate, that little withdrawn 4 year old would become a completely withdrawn adult with no idea how to interact with other people.

If Cosmo and Wanda abandoned her now, a lifetime of misery and loneliness was all she had to look forward to.

“How do you know all this?” Wanda asked quietly as Jorgen sat back at his desk. “Normally you only have the barest amount of information on godchild assignments. But you practically quoted everything we’ve seen this past week. Last time I checked, you can’t see into the future, so how do you know so much about this one case?”

Jorgen was silent for a few minutes, and Wanda had begun to think that he wasn’t going to answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was uncharacteristically soft.

“Because I have seen a case much like hers before. If we do nothing, her life will become hollow, lonely, and miserable. No child deserves such an empty life.”

Wanda studied her superior for a moment, completely taken aback by his strange behavior. This must have been a truly special case if it had caught the attention of Jorgen Von Strangle, toughest fairy in the universe.

“But why—“

“NO MORE QUESTIONS!” Jorgen suddenly bellowed and pointed his wand at the little pink haired fairy. In a blinding flash of light, Wanda was gone, transported back to the house of her new godchild.

What she found when she arrived made her jaw drop.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cosmo. Alone with the new goddaughter. What could possibly go wrong?

As Wanda flipped through an old magazine waiting for her appointment with Jorgen, Cosmo uttered another heavy sigh. He really didn’t want to stay all alone with Tabby, but his fear of Jorgen was all the convincing he needed to stay behind.

Besides, she never did anything anyway, what could possibly go wrong?

Wanda had been gone for an hour when Tabby climbed onto her bed to play with one of her many dolls. She sat and combed through the ragdoll’s yarn hair with her fingers as she hummed a tuneless melody, and Cosmo watched her from what he had come to know as ‘his corner’, growing more and more bored by the second.

Her fingers ran through the yarn hair slowly and methodically. On one pass, they snagged on the doll’s hair bow and it unraveled, slipping out of the yarn and tumbling gently to the floor. Tabby watched it fall, and gently laid her doll down in order to retrieve the ribbon. She leaned over the edge of the bed, stretching her fingers as far as they would go, her tongue sticking out in concentrated effort. Her fingertips brushed the ribbon, causing it to slip further out of her reach, and Cosmo watched as she stretched farther, her eyes locked on the shiny red material.

Suddenly her body lurched forward as she slipped off the bed’s comforter, sending her crashing to the floor. She landed mostly on her chin, causing her teeth to clamp down painfully hard on her tongue. The response was immediate and practically deafening. She inhaled and let loose an almost ear-splitting scream as blood from her wounded tongue streamed down her chin. Tears practically flew from her eyes in her panic, and her entire body stiffened as if an electric charge had passed through it.

Cosmo was terrified. He sat rooted to the spot staring at her with wide eyes, his hands clamped tightly over his ears and frozen with panic. She had hurt herself, badly by the sound of it, and HE was the only one around to care for her. Wanda wasn’t here, and the most recent nanny—a girl barely out of her teens—was busy flirting with the neighbor’s pool boy. That left Cosmo in charge.

Facing Jorgen started to look pretty good right now, and for a brief moment, Cosmo seriously considered poofing to Fairy World to get Wanda. She would know what to do.

Once the initial shriek had played itself out, Tabitha began to cry loudly. She managed to pull herself onto her hands and knees and shook terribly with her sobs. Cosmo slowly lowered his hands and watched as the little girl lowered herself to cry into the carpet, her back hitching with muffled sobs. His heart went out to the hurt child, and all other considerations vanished as he watched her.

He was in charge. Technically, he was her godfather, and he was the only one here who could help her. He wasn’t sure he could do it, but he had to try.

Clutching his wand tightly in both hands, Cosmo slowly floated to where Tabby lay, face down in the carpeting, curled into a tight ball. He gently laid a hand on her back, caressing in short strokes.

“H-Hey,” he called softly, lowering himself near her ear. “Tabby? Can I see? I can fix it. I can make it better. Can I see?” If she had heard she gave no response but more sobs. “Tabby?”

Cosmo moved the hand on her back, slowly bringing it to her shoulder and squeezing gently. She jumped as if just realizing he was there and looked at him, her wide eyes red and puffy. Blood still trickled down her chin and Cosmo willed himself not to cry. He wanted so much to help her but was so scared of messing up.

“I can fix it,” he said, smiling reassuringly and showing her his wand. “I can make it not hurt anymore. D-Do you want me to make it better?”

Tabitha stared at him for a long minute, sniffling and hiccupping with suppressed sobs. Finally, she slowly nodded her head as more tears streamed down her already wet cheeks. Cosmo smiled.

“Okay,” he said, kneeling in front of her. “I’ll make it better. Can you sit up for me?”

Taking hold of her trembling shoulders, Cosmo gently helped her straighten into a half-kneeling, half-sitting position.

“Good! Now, can you show Cosmo your boo-boo?” She looked at him, puzzled. “Your owie. Your . . . uh . . . well, just go like this.” He stuck his tongue out and pointed to it. “Thee? Ike thith.”

Understanding lit Tabby’s eyes as she nodded and opened her mouth, slowly poking her hurt tongue out. Cosmo smiled wide and nodded, thrilled that she had understood.

“GOOD!” he cried, startling her with his excitement. She jerked backwards and came close to falling over before Cosmo quickly grabbed her and gently pulled her forward. “Sorry,” he said softly. “I’ll fix that right u—oh wait. I can’t unless you wish for it.” He frowned, furrowing his brow as he thought. Suddenly his eyebrows shot up as an idea struck.

“Okay, Tabby? I’m going to ask you something, and you have to say ‘YES’, okay?” She looked at him questioningly, her tongue still sticking out. “Oh, that’s right, you can’t, can you? Well . . . uh . . . OH! Okay, when I ask you something, you nod, okay? Just go like this,” he said and nodded his head enthusiastically as an example. Tabitha still looked unsure, but nodded. Cosmo smiled widely.

“Great!” he said, grabbing his wand. “Okay. Tabitha, do you _WISH_ for me to make you better?” She stared at him. “Sweetie, I can’t do anything unless you nod,” he whispered, nodding his head slightly.

She continued to stare as fresh blood dripped onto the carpet.

And then slowly, ever so slowly, Tabitha nodded her head. Cosmo restrained an urge to leap into the air and cheer. Barely.

“All right, sweetie,” he said instead, a wide smile stretching across his face. “Your wish is my command.”

Tabby’s eyes grew wide as the star on Cosmo’s wand glowed brightly, and she closed them tightly when it released an almost blinding flash. She kept them closed for a few seconds before slowly opening them, blinking quickly. Cosmo was still sitting before her, his smile now one of relief.

“I did it,” he whispered, mostly to himself. “I did it!”

“WHAT HAPPENED??” Wanda cried as she poofed back into the room, startling both Cosmo and Tabitha. Her eyes were wide as they passed from the blood on Tabby’s chin, to the stain on the carpet. “Cosmo, what happened? Is she all right? Where’d all that blood come from?”

She quickly flew to Tabitha, and Cosmo—thinking he was in trouble—flew just as quickly away. He twisted and fidgeted with his wand as he watched his wife with wide, worried eyes.

Tabby’s eyes, however, never left Cosmo as Wanda gently caressed her cheeks.

“Tabitha, sweetie,” Wanda said softly, gently stroking the girl’s hair. “Are you all right? Did you hurt yourself? Where does it hurt?”

When the girl didn't answer, Wanda suddenly turned on her husband, fixing him with a look that may have burned a hole through him had she held it long enough. He flinched in the heat of her gaze and shrank back against the wall.

“Cosmo! What happened? Can’t I leave you alone with her for a few hours without—“

“He made it better.”

Wanda stopped suddenly, shocked that their godchild had actually spoken. She looked back, stunned. “What? What sweetie?”

Tabby looked at her godmother, a small smile on her lips.

“He made it better,” she said again. “I fell, and it hurt really bad, but he used his star and made it better.” As if to prove it, Tabby stuck her tongue out at Wanda and wiggled it. “Thee?” she mumbled, pointing to it.

Wanda smiled shakily. “Okay, honey, I see. Go ahead and put it away, okay?”

Tabby giggled but pulled her tongue back into her mouth. Wanda raised her wand and cleaned up all the bloodstains, both from the carpeting and Tabby’s chin and clothes.

“Good girl. Now, why don’t you play with your doll while I talk to Cosmo for a minute, okay?”

The girl smiled and nodded before pulling her ragdoll onto the floor with her. She fixed her bed with an angry glare before turning her back on it and walking away.

“Cosmo?” Wanda asked gently as she floated to him. “What happened?”

The worried look in Cosmo’s eyes intensified as he began trembling.

“It wasn’t my fault Wanda!” he cried, tears forming. “Okay, maybe it WAS my fault just a little bit but I had no idea she was going to fall, and maybe I didn’t go to her right away but she was screaming and crying and there was so much blood and I was so scared I panicked and had no idea what to do but—“

Wanda clamped a hand over his mouth.

“Slowly,” she said softly, locking his eyes with hers. “Calm down and tell me what happened.”

Cosmo nodded, blinking away the few remaining tears in his eyes as Wanda removed her hand.

“She was playing with a doll on the bed,” he began carefully. “Running her fingers through the hair, like she does, okay?”

Wanda nodded.

“The doll’s hair ribbon came undone and fell on the floor. She reached for it, but slipped off the bed and landed on her chin. She bit her tongue really bad, and that’s where the blood came from.”

“And you healed it for her?”

Cosmo nodded.

“How? Did she wish for it?”

Cosmo absently rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “Yeah, kinda . . .”

“Cosmo . . .” Wanda started, one eyebrow raised.

He threw his hands in the air, suddenly defensive.

“Well what was I supposed to do, let her bleed?” he cried in a shaky voice. “She was hurt, Wanda! You weren’t here and that nanny was too busy making goo-goo eyes at the pool guy to notice! I asked her if she WISHED for me to make it better, and she nodded. So I did.” He calmed, casting his eyes down as a blush crept across his cheeks. “It was the only thing I could think of to do.”

What Cosmo expected to happen next involved either heavy objects being thrown in his direction or an unplanned trip to visit Jorgen and his many muscles—neither of which happened. Instead, he suddenly found himself in a tight embrace as Wanda threw her arms around him. She peppered his cheeks with kisses as she hugged him tightly.

“Oh, honey!” she cried happily. “That was very smart! You did so good!”

Cosmo shook his head as if to clear it, and stared at his wife with wide eyes. “So . . . you’re not mad?” he stammered.

She laughed. “Of course not! I’m sorry I yelled at you before, sweetie. I was just so worried after seeing all that blood! But you took such good care of her! I’m so proud of you, Cosmo!”

“Really?” he whispered, a crooked smile curling his lips.

She pulled back enough to look him in the eyes. “Really,” she replied, and kissed him firmly on the lips. “But you’ve done so much more, sweetie! Because of what you did, you cracked her. She actually spoke! Now we have a chance to help her. All because of you!” She kissed him again.

“So we’re not leaving?” he asked hesitantly.

Wanda shook her head. “Jorgen was VERY clear that this assignment was no mistake,” she replied, releasing him and turning to watch Tabby as she played with her dolls. Every now and then she stuck her tongue out and delicately touched the tip with a finger. “I think we’re going to be here for a while.”

“Oh,” Cosmo said, his face unreadable. “Okay.”

He watched as Tabby tired of her dolls and sat quietly for a few seconds, running her healed tongue over her lips. Suddenly she jumped up and ran over to where the fairies were hovering, a large smile on her face.

“Tabby!” she cried, pointing to herself. “Tabby!”

Cosmo and Wanda exchanged a glance and floated down to her level.

“Is that your name?” Wanda asked, and Tabby replied with an enthusiastic nod. “It’s nice to meet you, Tabby. My name is Wanda.”

“Wanna! Wan-da!”

The pink haired fairy smiled wide and nodded. “Yes! Wanda!”

Tabby grinned and giggled before turning to Cosmo, and grabbed his hand before he could react. The smile widened as she pulled him down to her, and eagerly threw her arms around his neck in a tight hug. Cosmo’s eyes widened in shock as Wanda looked on with a happy smile.

“You made me better!” Tabby whispered happily into his ear. “All better!”

Cosmo’s shock quickly dissipated and he smiled, curling his arms around her to complete the embrace.

“That’s right,” he said softly. “All better. My name is Cosmo.”

“Cos-mo. Cosmo. Cosmo! Wanda, Cosmo! Cosmo, Wanda!” the little girl cried happily as she released Cosmo and clutched each fairy by a hand.

The fairies looked at each other, large smiles on their faces.

“I think I liked her better when she didn’t talk,” Cosmo joked as Tabby continued to repeat their names over and over like some strange chant.

Wanda laughed. “She’s just excited,” she explained, looking at Tabby happily. “We’re probably the first friends she’s ever had. At least the first ones who’ve ever cared about her. She’ll probably calm down soon.”

Ten minutes passed of Tabby happily chanting the names of her fairies before she dragged them around the room and excitedly showed them each and every doll and toy she owned. Wanda listened intently as the girl introduced each doll by name, but Cosmo wasn’t as interested since he was being handed each doll once introduced. His arms were soon full of baby dolls of all sizes, until he buckled under the weight and lay motionless under the pile.

Tabby gave a sharp cry and hurriedly dug her godfather out, a worried look in her eyes. Cosmo lay still until the girl leaned closer, then grabbed her suddenly and tickled her sides. Her laughter was infectious, and soon both fairies joined in.

They had never heard her laugh before, and Cosmo thought it was a marvelously light sound, one that seemed to brighten the room. He decided that he would like to hear this sound as much as possible for as long as they were with her, and vowed to do anything necessary to keep her happy and make her laugh.

Wanda was ecstatic at the complete change in personality their goddaughter had performed. Just this morning she had been nothing more than a living statue, showing only blank stares at any attempt at interaction. Now she was a vibrant, happy child, who seemed to glow before her eyes, thrilled beyond all comprehension to finally have someone to play with. All the doubts she had had regarding leaving Cosmo alone with her had been wiped clean. Their goddaughter’s transformation was possible because of him.

The toddler and two fairies played happily throughout the day, and when Tabby’s nanny came upstairs to give the girl her supper, Cosmo and Wanda pretended to be dolls and hid among the many others. The little girl looked worriedly at her new friends, scared that they were going to leave her like so many other people had, but the two ‘dolls’ smiled at her and winked their button eyes. Tabby waited as her nanny carefully set up the food tray, and ran to them once the young lady had left.

“Will you go away?” she asked quietly, the worry making her stomach twist. The dolls quickly poofed back to their fairy forms, and went to each side of her.

“No, sweetie,” Wanda said with a gentle smile. “We’re not going anywhere. We’re going to stay right here, with you, for a long, long time.”

A small smile lifted the corners of Tabby’s mouth, and tears welled up in her eyes.

“Really?” she whispered. “You’re gonna stay with me?”

Wanda smiled and nodded. “Uh huh. You might not be able to see us all the time, but we’re still here, just hiding. We can’t let anyone else see us. Just you.”

“And you have to promise you won’t tell anyone about us,” Cosmo added, making Tabby turn to him. “If you tell, we have to go away.”

The little girl frowned, tears leaking from her big brown eyes.

“I don’t want you to go away. I want you to stay,” she whispered as she threw her arms around Cosmo and hugged him. “I want you to stay forever.”

Cosmo’s eyes suddenly widened and the pain in them almost made Wanda cry out. They both knew they couldn’t stay with her ‘forever’, and Tabby’s innocent plea had reminded Cosmo of the many godchildren from the past, many of whom had cried this same sentiment, and the many heartbreaking goodbye’s that had taken place regardless.

He tried not to let on how painful each farewell had been to him, but Wanda knew. She had heard him crying on more than one occasion for the godchildren they had left behind, and it hurt her to know that HER dream of being a fairy godparent was killing Cosmo, little by little.

Maybe the time was drawing near to retire from fairy godparent life, if for no other reason than for the sake of her husband’s heart.

And really, what other reason did Wanda need? He had gone into fairy godparent training because it had been her dream, and he wanted to give her what she desired. It was only fair to return the favor and spare Cosmo’s fragile emotional state from this continual torment.

“We’ll stay with you for as long as we can,” Wanda said softly, gently rubbing Tabby’s back as she continued to hug a now teary-eyed Cosmo. “We’ll stay with you.”

After a few minutes, Wanda managed to pry the little girl off her husband and coax her to eat her supper. As Tabby dug in to her cheese sandwich, Wanda pulled Cosmo to a far corner of the room. He was shaking slightly, tears leaking slowly from his eyes.

“Cosmo, sweetie,” Wanda soothed, taking her husband into her arms. “It’s okay. Calm down.”

The green haired fairy clutched his wife’s arm tightly.

“Forever?” he whispered harshly, uttering a sharp laugh. “There’s no such thing as ‘forever’! All there is is a few years of fun and laughs and wishes and then what? Then we go away and the kid doesn’t even remember us!”

“I know, honey,” Wanda said softly. “But that’s the nature of being fairy godparents.”

Cosmo grimaced and buried his face into his wife’s shoulder.

“It’s not fair,” he told her shoulder. “It hurts, Wanda. It hurts when we have to leave.”

“But we just got here, sweetie!” she reminded him, gently rubbing his back. “We’ll probably be here for a long, long time. She’s still so young!”

“That’ll just make it worse,” he said quietly after a long minute, and she silently agreed. The longer they were with a child meant that many more memories to haunt them after they had to leave.

Wanda sighed, gently stroking her husband’s hair. “Maybe she’ll be our last,” she said softly.

Cosmo slowly pulled back and looked into his wife’s large pink eyes. “What?”

“I’ve been thinking, Cosmo,” she began, choosing her words carefully. “We’ve been doing this for a long time, and we’ve had a lot of really great godchildren. But maybe the time has come to . . . do something else.” What that ‘something else’ was she wasn’t sure, mostly because she had never wanted to do anything BUT be a fairy godparent. But for Cosmo, she would find something else.

He stared at her, mouth hanging agape. “But you LOVE being a fairy godmother!” he cried, shaking his head in disbelief. “You love granting wishes and all the godchildren—“

“I love YOU more,” she said quietly, her hand on his cheek and a gentle smile on her lips. “I know this has been hard on you, Cosmo, and I hate myself for letting it go on for so long. I completely ignored the pain you felt each time we had to leave our godchild. I completely ignored how it STILL hurts you. I’m very sorry, sweetie. I’ve been so selfish.” Tears began to trickle down her cheeks as she gazed into her husband’s large green eyes. “We’ll stop if you want to, sweetie. Tabitha will be our last godchild. I’ll talk to Jorgen and—“

Cosmo placed a finger to her lips, silencing her.

“You’re only saying this because of me,” he said simply, a knowing smile on his lips. “You really don’t want to stop.”

Wanda pulled his hand away, but didn’t let go. “It’s because of you I’m WILLING to stop,” she explained intently. “I love you so much, Cosmo, and I don’t want to see you hurt anymore.”

“But Wanda . . .”

“Cosmo, it was MY choice that began our lives as fairy godparents,” she said, holding his hand over her heart. “I want it to be YOUR choice when we stop.”

Cosmo stared at her, his eyes wide and confused. She was actually considering quitting? Just for him? Why? He knew how much she loved being a fairy godparent, and that it would kill her to stop. Since they had never managed to have children of their own, having godchildren was kind of like having kids. Sure, they were only with the kids for a few years, and they never ACTUALLY had to raise any of them, but it was better than nothing, right? Why would she give that up?

One look at Wanda gave him his answer. Because she knew. She knew how hard it was on him each and every time they had to say goodbye. She knew that he wasn’t emotionally strong enough to do this for much longer. And she knew that he could never bring this up himself.

“I . . .” he started before closing his mouth with a soft ‘snap’. Wanda’s eyes were locked with his, and in them he saw three things; fear—that he would actually say ‘stop’ now, hope—that begged him to continue on, for just a little while, and love—an emotion so strong it very nearly canceled out the other two. It was practically coming off the pink haired fairy in waves.

He gasped. The last emotion told him that she would accept and abide by whatever choice he made, as long as that meant he would stay with her. Her love for him overrode her own wishes and desires.

And it made him love her all the more.

“I’ll think about it,” he said quietly, placing a gentle hand on her cheek. “I love you so much, Wanda, and I don’t want you to be sad. This IS hard, but . . . it’s easier when you’re with me.”

Wanda shook her head, looking upset. “But Cosmo . . .”

“Besides,” he continued, a crooked smile curling his lips and a light laugh in his voice. “What else am I gonna do? I BARELY passed Fairy Academy, and took 10 years to finish high school. There aren’t many jobs out there for a stupid screw up like me!” He laughed, a horribly forced sound to Wanda’s ears, and tried to fly to Tabby when Wanda grabbed his arm and turned him almost roughly to face her again.

“You are NOT stupid OR a screw up,” she told him sternly, holding his face in her hands. “You’re my husband, and I love you very, very much. I’m serious, Cosmo. Whenever you want to stop, just say so.”

The amount of love in her intense gaze frightened Cosmo, and he feared he may cry if she didn’t look away soon. He gently took hold of her hands on his cheeks and smiled sweetly.

“Calm down, sweetie,” he said softly, pulling her hands away. “It was just a little joke. I promise I’ll think about it. Really.”

She studied him for a moment before a small smile surfaced.

“Okay,” she said with a nod. “Just let me know, honey.”

He smiled back and gave her a small peck on the cheek.

“I will. Promise.” He then turned and called out to Tabby, “Hey! Is there anymore cheese sandwich left?” before quickly flying to her.

Wanda watched him go and shook her head. She hoped he really would think about a decision, but gave him a 50/50 chance of even remembering this conversation by the time they went to bed. He was sweet, devoted, gentle and caring, but heaven help him, he really couldn’t hold a thought in his head for very long.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Opening up. Starting the godchild/godparent bond.

Wanda watched as Cosmo plopped himself into the little chair opposite Tabby, and teasingly grabbed the other half of her toasted cheese sandwich. After a moment of stunned silence, the little girl reached across the table and snatched it back. Grinning like a Cheshire Cat, Cosmo reached forward and plucked it from her hands again, bringing it slowly to his mouth as though he would swallow it whole. Tabby uttered an angry cry and threw the crackers for her tomato soup at him. They bounced off his hair, but he clutched his head, cried out in agony and fell dramatically to the floor, where he lay ‘dead’, complete with tongue hanging out.

Tabby immediately jumped to her feet and ran to where her godfather lay, being careful not to step on his tongue. She leaned close, poking his cheek tenderly as if testing him, then grabbed her sandwich and ran back to her seat.

“HEY!” the corpse called out as he sat upright. “That’s no way to treat the dead!”

Tabby paused mid-chew to stick her tongue out at him.

“MY sandwich,” she said around her mouthful. “You can have this.” She picked up her celery stalk and tossed it to him, making him grimace.

“Eww,” he uttered, wrinkling his nose. “What is it?”

Tabby shrugged. “Dunno,” she said as she finished her sandwich. “But it’s icky.”

Cosmo lowered himself so that his eyes were level with the table and regarded the stalk with a shrewd gaze. “Hey, Tabby! Come here, quick!”

Tabby gave him a questioning look but moved next to him. He gently pulled her down so she was sitting like him, looking at the celery.

“Maybe it’s an alien!” he said in a hushed voice. “Maybe if we’re not careful it will crawl up our noses!”

Tabby’s eyes grew wide. “Really?” she whispered, inching closer to him. “I don’t want it up my nose!”

“Uh oh!” Cosmo cried, grabbing onto Tabby. “I think I saw it move!” His left hand, containing his wand, was under the table, gently coaxing the celery above to tremble.

Tabby quickly covered her nose.

“Make it go away!” she cried, squeezing next to her godfather, who held her tightly.

Wanda laughed quietly and shook her head in amazement. She had never seen Cosmo like this before.

“You have to make a wish, Tabby!” Cosmo cried as his wand made the celery jump. “Say ‘I wish’ and then what you want it to do! Hurry Tabby! I think it’s gonna charge!”

Tabby screamed and covered her face.

“I WISH THE ICKY GREEN THING WAS GONE!” she cried as she scrambled into Cosmo’s lap.

With a smile, the green haired fairy pulled his wand out from underneath the table and held it over the celery. The star flashed, and the little vegetable vanished.

Wanda stared in disbelief. Cosmo had just taught Tabby how to wish. And it was brilliantly done.

“WHEW!” he sighed, dramatically wiping his forehead. “That was a close one! Good job, Tabby! You saved us! Hooray!” He hugged her tight as she separated her fingers to peek at the tabletop.

“It’s gone!” she laughed, throwing her hands above her head. “Yay!”

She craned her head around and smiled widely when she saw Wanda floating over to them. “Wanda! Did you see? There was a alien on the table, an’ I saved us!”

Her godmother smiled and nodded.

“You bet I saw,” she said, sitting next to them. “Good job!” She said it to Tabby but looked at Cosmo, who blushed and smiled shyly. Looking back at her goddaughter, she said, “But now it’s time to finish eating, okay? You want to be big and strong for that next alien attack, don’t you?”

Tabby nodded enthusiastically and hurried back to her chair to finish her meal.

Cosmo and Wanda hid once again when Tabby’s nanny came to clear the dishes, but once she had gone, they reappeared, much to Tabby’s delight. Maybe they really WERE going to stay with her, after all.

Tabby had never laughed and smiled so much in her young life. None of her nannies ever stayed in her room this long, and even when they did, they never showed her the amount of attention that Cosmo and Wanda did in just one afternoon. Somehow, she knew that these little people—with their pink and green hair and little wings jutting out of their backs—were different.

But it was a good kind of different, because they cared. They listened. They hugged her and talked to her and played with her, and never grew tired of her.

They loved her.

And she loved them right back.

At bedtime, Tabby impatiently waited for the nanny to leave after getting her ready for bed. The distracted young lady hurriedly bathed and dressed Tabby, before plopping her into bed and leaving in a rush. Her favorite reality show was starting soon, and she didn’t want to miss the beginning.

Once the door closed behind her, Cosmo and Wanda poofed next to Tabby’s bed.

“Wow,” Cosmo whistled. “That was fast!”

Wanda scowled. “No, that was RUSHED. That’s not the proper way to put a child to bed!”

Cosmo looked confused. “But Wanda,” he said, pointing to Tabby with his wand. “She IS in bed. And she’s got her pajama’s on, too. Looks right to me!”

“Hush!” she said as she quickly flew to Tabby’s bedside. “Would you like a bedtime story, sweetie?”

Tabby smiled, surprised. “I can have a story?” she asked in a high voice.

Wanda nodded, smiling. “Of course, sweetie. Any one you want.”

With an excited squeal, Tabby kicked the covers off and ran to her bookshelf, wanting to find the perfect story to have them read. She ran her fingers over the spines of the books, and occasionally pulled one from the shelf to examine the cover. She knew each book by the pictures, and wanted to find her favorite.

“This!” she cried as she found the one she was looking for. Holding it high above her head, she hurried back to her bed, pushing a very startled Cosmo in before her, and pulling Wanda in after. She handed the book to Wanda, and pulled the covers back up, snuggling them all beneath them.

“This one,” she said, poking the cover with her finger. “Read this, please.”

Wanda smiled and kissed the top of the girl’s head. “Okay, sweetie,” she said, making herself comfortable. “We’ll read Cinderella.”

Tabby clapped her hands happily and snuggled next to Wanda, who pulled her close. The pink haired fairy wrapped her arm around the little girl, holding the book so Tabby could see all the familiar pictures when Wanda read the words that went with them.

“Once upon a time,” Wanda began, but was interrupted when Tabby suddenly cried “OH!” and sat up. She took the book from the pink haired fairy and quickly flipped through the pages, searching for one particular picture.

“Look!” the girl cried, pointing to a drawing of Cinderella’s fairy godmother, who had wings and a wand, just like the two little people in her bed.

Wanda smiled and nodded. “That’s right,” she said, gently taking the book back. “That’s Cinderella’s fairy godmother. She used her magic to help Cinderella.”

Cosmo uttered an annoyed 'pfft'. “Yeah, right,” he said, rolling his eyes. “She made a dress and turned a pumpkin into a car, big deal. And everything went back to normal at midnight! What kind of magic is that?”

Wanda frowned at him. “Oh Cosmo, it was written by a human a long time ago,” she said, annoyed at his interruption. “What do humans really know about fairies?”

“Fairies?” Tabby asked, slightly confused. “You’re fairies?”

Cosmo and Wanda exchanged a glance. They had introduced themselves when they had first appeared to Tabby, but considering how stubborn she had been, it was not surprising that she hadn’t remembered.

“Yes, sweetie,” Wanda said with a smile. “We’re your fairy godparents. I’m your fairy godmother, like in the book, and Cosmo is your fairy godfather. We’re here to grant you wishes and make you happy.”

“Wishes?” the little girl repeated, looking puzzled. Suddenly her face cleared and she looked at Cosmo. “Like at supper? I made a wish about the icky green thing, and it was gone.”

Cosmo smiled, nodding. “Yep, just like that,” he said. “Whenever you want something, just say ‘I wish’ and then whatever you want. We use our wands,” he showed her his wand, “to make it come true.”

“Anything?” she asked hopefully.

“Almost,” Wanda said, making Tabby turn. “There are a few things we can’t do, but there are a lot of things we CAN!”

“Oh,” Tabby said quietly. Wanda sensed her confusion and pulled her close for a gentle hug.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” she said softly. “I know it’s a lot to understand. We’ll take it slow, okay? Just remember that we’re here with you for as long as you need us. We’re here to make you happy.”

“And don’t tell anyone about us,” Cosmo reminded her. “Or else we’ll have to go away.”

Tabby considered this for a moment before shaking her head.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she said, looking back and forth between her godparents. “I promise I won’t. You’ll stay with me then, right?”

Wanda smiled, placing a kiss on her forehead. “You bet we will,” she promised. “We’ll be right here.”

“Unless we’re over there,” Cosmo added, pointing across the room. “Or over there. Or up there. Or—“

Wanda’s wand glowed as a zipper appeared across Cosmo’s mouth.

“Now, shall we continue with our story?” she asked Tabby, who smiled and nodded before snuggling next to her once more. “Okay. Once upon a time . . .”

_**~X~X~X~** _

The story continued uninterrupted thanks to Cosmo’s zippered mouth, and halfway through, Wanda gently nudged him.

“Hmmm?” he asked, using his wand to remove the zipper. “What’s up?”

“Shh!” Wanda whispered and nodded her head in Tabby’s direction. The little girl was still curled up in Wanda’s arm, sound asleep, quietly sucking her thumb.

“Help me get her into bed,” Wanda whispered. “She’s got me pinned.”

Cosmo nodded and poofed himself out from under the covers, so as not to disturb Tabby as she slept. He reappeared in front of the two, and gently maneuvered the sleeping child out from under his wife’s arm. Once free, Wanda poofed herself out of bed, then she and Cosmo gently tucked Tabby in, each placing a gentle kiss on her cheek.

“Good night, Tabby,” Cosmo whispered as Wanda dimmed the lights. “We’ll have even more fun tomorrow!”

“Sleep well, sweetie,” Wanda told her softly, gently stroking her brown hair. “Have good dreams.”

Cosmo followed his wife as she floated over to the bookshelf to return the storybook. She sighed as she slipped the hardback in place, and Cosmo offered her a questioning glance.

“Something wrong?”

She shook her head, looking confused. “No, not wrong exactly, but . . .” She looked back at the sleeping child. “This assignment is so different. She’s just so young! Why would Jorgen allow a 4 year old to have godparents? She barely understands what fairies are, let alone making wishes! I just don’t understand.”

“Maybe Jorgen’s punishing us,” Cosmo said with a shrug. “We do kind of screw up a lot. Maybe this is his way of keeping us from granting big, alter-the-history-of-the-world type wishes.”

It was Wanda’s turn to shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe. He did say that she would end up pretty miserable if we didn’t help her. But I’m still not sure why he decided that she needed godparents NOW as opposed to a few years down the road. Doesn’t he know that story from Godparent History class?”

Cosmo offered his wife a slight shrug. He hadn’t really thought about how strange the assignment was, he just did as he was told. Tabby’s age had really meant nothing much to him, but the way she acted in the beginning was a major source of annoyance. But now things seem to be going as they should, with the godchild happy to have fairies and having fun interacting with them. THIS is what Cosmo really loved about being a godparent.

Wanda quietly watched Tabby sleep for a few moments as she continued to contemplate the assignment, wondering just what Jorgen had up his sleeve. The big guy didn’t usually take such an interest in godchild assignments, or the godchildren at all for that matter, so what was so special about this case? Was Jorgen actually slipping and becoming more sensitive to the children’s lives?

And when he found out that Tabby was refusing to respond, why didn’t he assign different godparents to her, ones that had more experience dealing with emotionally withdrawn children? He seemed pretty darn insistent that this assignment was not a mistake, and pretty much refused to even consider reassigning Cosmo and Wanda. Why?

Another moment of silence passed between the two fairies before Wanda turned to her husband with a smile. There would be plenty of time to contemplate the reasons behind this assignment. The important thing was that their godchild was actually responding now, and it was all thanks to Cosmo.

“Have I told you lately how proud I am of you?” Wanda asked softly, and Cosmo blushed.

“No, not lately,” he said quietly, a small smile on his lips. Her smile widened as she draped her arms across his shoulders, pulling him close.

“Well, I am,” she told him, kissing him softly. “You healed Tabby when she hurt herself AND taught her how to wish, all in the same day!” She kissed him again. “I’ve never seen you so . . . so . . .”

“Competent?” he offered as he wrapped his arms around her waist, and she blushed.

“Confident,” she finished, and it was his turn to blush. “You seem so sure of yourself with her. It’s amazing.”

He shrugged. “She makes me comfortable,” he said simply.

Wanda offered him a questioning look. “But I thought you didn’t like her?” she asked quietly. “I mean, I can understand why you kept your distance, she was acting really anti-social, after all.”

Cosmo shrugged. “I was kind of mad when she was ignoring us, and . . . well, I kind of didn’t like her,” he said, and gave his wife a look that was half shame, half embarrassment. “I didn’t like the way she was making you worry. She just seemed like this mean kid who didn’t care about anything, you know?”

Wanda nodded.

“But when she hurt herself, it was different. All of a sudden there was this little girl who was hurt and needed help. I was scared, but I knew I was the only one who could help her.”\

Wanda raised an eyebrow. “You never thought about going to Fairy World to get me?” she asked slyly.

A smile crept its way across Cosmo’s lips as his blush returned.

“I thought about it,” he confessed, a slight laugh in his voice. “But she was crying so hard, that I thought it would have been better if I did something myself.” A look of worry clouded his features momentarily. “Was that the right thing to do?”

Wanda smiled, pulling him close for a tight hug.

“That was the PERFECT thing to do, sweetie,” she whispered into his ear. “She’s talking and laughing and interacting with us now, and it’s all because of what you did today. Oh honey, I am so very proud of you!”

The green haired fairy smiled, and the blush that had faded suddenly returned with a vengeance.

“Wow,” he whispered. “I need to make you proud of me more often!”

Wanda laughed softly.

“You big goof,” she giggled, resting her head on his shoulder. “I’m glad you feel comfortable around her now. It usually takes you a while to get close to godchildren.”

Cosmo was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke next, his voice was soft and gentle, almost as though he were talking to himself.

“I feel like I can talk to her without feeling like she thinks I’m stupid. I feel smarter around her. I feel like she thinks I know what I’m doing. I feel like I’m actually teaching her when I talk.”

Wanda smiled. “Cosmo, she’s 4,” she said quietly.

“Exactly,” he said with a slight laugh. “I’ve got another year until she realizes I’m an idiot!”

Wanda laughed softly as she pulled back from the embrace.

“Yeah, well, you’re MY idiot,” she said, punctuating the claim with a tender kiss. “And I’m glad I married you.”

“I’m glad you married me, too!” he said as they floated toward the large dollhouse they had taken as their secret home. “I rented the tux and everything! I would have looked pretty dumb standing at the alter all by myself!”

They laughed again, before disappearing into the dollhouse.

That day marked a turning point for Tabby, because it was the first time she had ever felt truly cared for. She didn’t fully understand what fairies were, or why Cosmo and Wanda had to hide when anyone came to her room, but the knowledge that they would come back once she was alone again reassured her. She learned that sometimes people had to go away, but they would come back again if they truly cared about her.

They played with her, laughed with her, kissed her boo-boos and read to her every night. It would be a while until she truly got the hang of the whole ‘wish’ thing, but that was okay. Cosmo and Wanda were having fun playing with her and teaching her just the same.

None of them could have imagined what the future had in store for them, but they were ready, willing, and able to face it, heads held high, and hands clasped together tightly.

 


End file.
